Bowties are cool
by parselmagic
Summary: This is a one shot story based on a prompt from Dumbledore's Army list of prompts, from today (7/3/13). The location said prompt was received was from the forum Hogwarts Online. Includes Harry attending a wedding, mentions of abusive Dursleys (not too much occurring in story though). I hope you enjoy the story, and PLEASE REVIEW! It can't take as long as it took me to write it!


*EDIT* I had tried fixing the year, and Harry's age, in the stuff, but it didn't work, so I am updating it so that it is correct.

This story is written based off of a daily prompt in Hogwarts Online.

*Checks bank account balance* Nope, I still don't own Harry Potter;

which also goes for any character you may recognize. :(

**PLEASE REVIEW THE STORY!**

It was the middle of summer, in the year 1994, and Harry was utterly miserable. He had just spent his 14th birthday like he had spent all of his other birthdays that he could remember. In other words, completely and utterly miserable, not even getting acknowledgement that it even occurred except from his few friends in the magical world. Harry was extremely grateful that he had managed to find at least a few friends in the magical world, knowing that Dudley would have tried to bully them into hating Harry if they had been what the Dursley's called "normal" people. That was the main point of his miserable existence while away from school, which he actually liked, aside from being with his few friends. The main reason Harry hated his summers so much was because the Dursleys, who were his last remaining relatives, were absolutely horrible to Harry in every way, shape, and form. They had forced him to take care of **_all_**of the household chores — both inside _and _outside — ever since he was five years old. They exacerbated this problem by only giving Harry a single slice of toast, dry, twice a day (when they remembered), but was more often only once a day.

Three days after his birthday, though, something had come to the Dursleys through the muggle post that made Harry _extremely_ happy. What could have caused this utter happiness, as anyone who had even caught a glimpse at how the Dursleys treated Harry could tell that the boy's existence was utterly miserable while he was living with them. The Dursley's main wish was to keep Harry as upset and downtrodden as possible, but they knew that if **_anyone_** from the magical world were to truly find out about their treatment of Harry, they would most likely be sent to Azkaban until they died (Petunia Dursley, Harry's aunt, had found out about the wizarding prison from information she snooped into while her sister was home from school one summer. She had not liked what she had read at all, and had no wish to ever go there).

The reason for Harry's sudden happiness was that piece of mail, which had been an invitation to a wedding and followed by a banquet. Now, normally, this would not have caused any happiness in him at all, because he would not have been allowed to go, but the invitation had hinged on Harry attending, as the groom knew Harry. This meant that the Dursleys had to get him a nice suit — that actually **_fit_** Harry — and also to give Harry some money so that he could buy a decent gift for a wedding present. When the morning of the wedding came, the entire Dursley household was in an uproar, trying to get ready in time. Harry thought that his muscles would burst open from holding in the laughter at Dudley's bowtie, which was a pale yellow with green polka dots. Harry's tie, on the other hand, was a nice dark blue, and wasn't a bowtie at all, but one that you had to tie by hand. When Harry couldn't take it any more and the laughter burst out of him like the very first time flames had erupted in hell.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of laughter, Harry had calmed down and the first question he had received was "What the devil do you find so absolutely hilarious?"

"Oh, nothing at all, Uncle Vernon, nothing at all" came Harry's reply with what he hoped was a straight face, while at least attempting to stifle more laughter. The only problem was that trying to hold back laughter was not a very good thing to be trying to do while you were attempting to convince someone of what you were saying, which resulted in his Uncle Vernon not believing a single word he had said, not that this wasn't normally the case anyway.

"You'll tell me _exactly_ what you happened to find so funny, **_this instant_**, or you'll be in your cupboard from the moment we get back from the wedding until your bloody school starts, and if it weren't for your — and their — _freakishness_, why, you wouldn't even be going back then," his uncle Vernon said with a maniacal glint in his eyes.

Harry, who had seen this look on his uncle's face far too often not to know the consequences, immediately said "Oh, I just found Dudley's tie immensely funny, that's all."

Everyone in the house had heard this, and the reaction that Harry had least expected came from Dudley himself, who said "What's your problem? Bowties are cool, unlike the ones that you have to actually tie. They're extremely easy to take off once you get done with whatever you needed to wear it for, whereas you'll have to spend more time getting yours off."

Harry's comeback to this was "Well, at least I'll look nice," but he said this in his head so as to not cause any of his relatives to beat him up.

When they got into the car to head to the wedding, Uncle Vernon stated that when they got back, Harry was to clean up all the mess that was made in their haste to get ready on time, and what's sad is that Harry had been expecting nothing less. Once they had gotten to the wedding, Harry went and placed his gift to the couple on the table with the other gifts, then went around, chatting amicably, with the other guests until it was time for the wedding to start. The service was beautiful, as weddings always are, and soon everyone was eating and having a good time. Harry had chosen to sit next to the newlyweds (after asking permission), and so for the duration of the wedding he felt like a normal teenager, being able to go to the wedding of someone he knew, and he enjoyed it very much. Following the banquet was a dance, and as Harry felt it would be rude to not even offer a single dance to anyone, walked up nervously to a girl that he had been covertly glancing at the entire day, where he asked "Would you care to have this dance with me?" Harry figured that even if he got turned down, he had tried his best to be polite, but, to his surprise, the girl agreed. They moved off to the dance floor and danced three numbers, then went back to the seats and started talking, Harry ultimately being surprised when he lost track of time while talking to her. They quickly said that it was nice to meet the other person, and enjoyed the experience, and hoped to see the other soon (which Harry knew that unless some miracle happened, that he would never be able to meet with this girl again, but didn't feel like ruining the girl's hopes), and Harry went off to get into his uncle's car.

After they got back, around six o'clock in the evening, Harry quickly went and changed out of his suit (he figured it would be the only thing he would ever get that was at least semi-decent from the Dursleys, and wanted to make it last as long as possible, in the best possible condition, and then immediately started cleaning up. There had been so much going on to get ready, that Harry didn't finish the cleanup until almost ten, at which time Harry retired to his cupboard. The next morning, the letter from Mrs. Weasley (the one with the stamps covering every part of the envelope except a square inch where she had squeezed Harry's name and address in, in miniscule writing) that had caused the postman to knock came, and, well, you know how THAT went.

THE END

A/N: "Bowties are cool" was quoted from The Doctor, and was what I had to include in this story.

Also; PLEASE REVIEW!


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